


this time, with gusto (and a little more heart)

by sassycatpants



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, minor mentions of sora and riku but mainly kairi and vanitas centric, semi-time travel, vanitas as a god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1397695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassycatpants/pseuds/sassycatpants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This time the only thing she remembers when Destiny Islands fall to the darkness again is laughing gold eyes in Sora's face and the warmth of Vanitas' arms as he held her close and kept her heart from breaking.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"How like the sea are you, Kairi?"</i></p><p> </p><p>Kairi, Vanitas and the moments she holds close to her heart on the journey to make things <i>better</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this time, with gusto (and a little more heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Oneshot, VanKai. Moments that take place during another, chapter-ed, story that's currently in the process of being written. Up in the air whether the snapshots in this oneshot takes place on or off screen in the main story, but they're in the same storyline regardless.

The first time she meets him, the god who calls himself Vanitas, she's twenty and newly dead at Xehanort's hand. He whispers things in her ear-- _"The sky and the earth do not make for good heroes because the sky is too free where a hero is chained to destiny, the earth too much unwavering protection to walk the paths he must walk. It is the sea who makes for the best, because it is the sea who changes, who knows that destiny is what you make of it and that the best kinds are the destiny you make yourself. How like the sea are you, Kairi?"_ \--promises that she can go back to the  _beginning_ and make it different. She can be the heroine instead of the princess  _{"Ah, but why not both? You can't change what you are, what your **heart** is, but you can be more. Be the princess who saves herself, Kairi."}_ and change the past that led to such a terrible future.

She doesn't actually have a choice of course, but she accepts it anyway.

\--------------  
\--------------

The next time she meets him, she's fourteen and just awoken on the beach; it's the day the Islands were swallowed by the darkness. For a moment, Kairi thinks he's Sora, but then no--it's Vanitas crouched down as he leans to nudge the girl awake.  _{"I said I'd be with you, didn't I, Red? Don't worry. I'll be with you every step of the way. Promise."}_

Kairi isn't sure how she feels about his promise as she stands on sun kissed shores, watching the sea press against the white sand of her childhood playground and listens to the sounds of Riku and Sora's laughter on the breeze. Her boys are safe and happy, home and carefree with none of the memories she still holds inside her heart; she hadn't forgotten, because those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. She has no memory of what happened the first _{more than once though, he_   _said that this was his third reset, that he'd tried once with Riku and once with Sora because he thought they were the keys--}_ time, but this time the only thing she remembers when Destiny Islands fall to the darkness again is laughing gold eyes in Sora's face and the warmth of Vanitas' arms as he held her close and kept her heart from breaking.

She doesn't cry as the only true home she can remember sinks into the blackness, because Kairi knows that Sora and Riku are safe with her and together they're going to save it.

\--------------  
\--------------

He teaches Kairi to walk on water later, when Destiny Islands have returned to where they belong and she's seventeen. Their journey isn't anywhere near complete, but home is back and he brings them home because that's where the heart is (but her heart's with him now, safe in his hands where she placed it when she realized with a jolt that it wasn't Sora she was in love with, but the god who Sora looked like) and he would never deny Kairi her heart. So when she jokingly says he has to take her on a "real date", he obliges. He even brings half a store's worth of flowers, and Kairi laughs because he  _means_ it.

Walking on water is an experience all its own; the sea around her home has always been crystal clear and on a sunny day if you looked down you could see straight to the bottom. It's hard at first, because walking on waves is not the same as walking on land and Kairi fumbles, thinks too hard about where to place her feet or how to balance herself out.

"Red," he says finally, all patience and amusement. "You're thinking too hard about this."

"I've never done this before!" His hands are warm around her own, his touch the only reason she doesn't go under. "I have to concentrate!"

"Do you think this hard about walking on land?"

"Sometimes, if I'm going up a steep hill--"

" _Kairi_. That's not the same thing. Do you think this hard about the mechanics of placing one foot in front of the other on land?" He shifts, tilts her chin up to look at him, and she can see the amusement flashing in his eyes.

"Well... No."

"Good. Then don't think about this." And then he yanks her forward by the hands abruptly, and Kairi stumbles a few steps forward, putting her feet down without thinking at all as she crashes against his chest. She opens her mouth to yell at him, before she pauses, because the bastard made her walk without thinking--  _and she'd done it_.

They spend hours walking across the waves, until the sun sets and it looks like the sea's caught fire. Vanitas takes her home after that, and she whispers in his ear before he can leave.

 _I love you_.

\--------------  
\--------------

When everything is said and done, all that's left is to go home and  _live._

"Everything started here, you know," he murmurs, when Riku and Sora have run ahead to see their own families and she's lagged behind because Vanitas seems hesitant to come further than the boundary between land and sea.

"It's been the beginning of so many things, and the end of others," Kairi says quietly, stepping forward. "Why not give it one more beginning?" The redhead smiles when Vanitas tosses back his head and laughs, and she warms inside

"Yeah. One more beginning sounds great." He reaches out for her hand, and Kairi laces their fingers together and leads him home. The sun sets behind them, sinking below the sea to the music of waves and shrieking gulls; he'd once asked her how much like the sea she was, if she'd make her own destiny but she doesn't think that was quite right.

The sea kept its heart to itself, hid its deepest secrets where none could ever find them as it carved its own path in the earth and reflected the sky. He'd asked the wrong question, asking about destinies when he should have asked about  _hearts_.


End file.
